


take his hand and run

by Selenay



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Companion search, Developing Friendships, Female Friendship, Gen, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 06:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6645550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenay/pseuds/Selenay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He's not good at being alone."</p>
<p>They're ready for their own adventures, but Clara and Me have one final task to complete. After all, who knows what the Doctor needs better than the people who have seen him through the good times and the worst times?</p>
            </blockquote>





	take his hand and run

**Author's Note:**

> It's been seven years since I wrote Doctor Who fic, but I had thoughts about companions old and new, and the best way that I know to work through them, is to fic them.

"He's not good at being alone."

Clara looked up from the TARDIS controls. Her TARDIS.

Well, half hers. More hers than the Doctor's had ever been, and that's why she loved this TARDIS. She finally understood why the Doctor had been the way he was around his: a TARDIS was more than a ship; it was friend, companion, partner, and annoying adversary all at once.

A few feet away, Me stood staring up at the screen, arms crossed over her chest and a small frown creasing her brow. Everything she did was small, now, as though she was afraid of disrupting the timeline by casting too large a ripple. It was something Clara was working on; helping Me live bigger dreams without getting in history's way. She remembered Ashildr's bright, brave ferocity, but it had been buried under four and a half billion years of life for Me.

Sometimes, Clara saw a spark of it return. She was determined to fan that spark into something more before her time ran out.

"Did you hear what I said?" Me asked. "He's not good at being alone."

Clara nodded. "I know. It's one of his flaws. It's why he had to forget me, so he could find someone new."

"Forgetting hasn't helped much. Look at him."

On the screen, the Doctor walked through a dark forest. Hands in pockets, head down, not even looking for the adventure that his TARDIS was trying show him.

"It's not as much fun without someone to show off to," Clara said, trying to sound like her heart wasn't breaking a little for him.

Me shook her head. "It's not just that. He needs a hand to hold. Someone to run with."

Clara tapped a button on the console and made a face when all it did was make a sad sound. There was more to owning a TARDIS than just learning to fly it. She didn't mind the broken chameleon circuit, but the white control room was starting to get on her nerves. It was like living inside a permanent headache.

She pressed the button harder, but it only made an even sadder sound, so she sighed and gave in. For now.

On the screen, the Doctor was still walking. Clara moved to stand next to Me, frowning at the scene.

"Maybe we need to stop watching him," Clara said. "Maybe it's like a watched pot."

"I'll stop watching him when you stop following him," Me said.

"We're not following him!"

"Really?"

Clara pursed her lips. "You programmed the last flight path."

Me shifted her feet, her gaze fixed on the screen. "He's difficult to avoid."

"Uh huh." Clara sighed. "He's really, really bad at being alone, isn't he?"

"He needs someone to talk to. He needs to hold someone's hand when he's running. It's the kind of man he is."

Clara nodded. "I thought he'd find someone if he was alone for long enough."

On the screen, something moved in the bushes. A shadow inside shadows. The Doctor kept walking, oblivious.

After a long pause, Me uncrossed her arms and straightened her shoulders. "He can't go on like this. We're going to have to fix it, if he won't do it for himself. It's probably best if it's us, rather than letting the Master do it again."

"Hey!" Clara threw a mock glare at Me. "That didn't work out so badly, did it?"

"Maybe not from your perspective, but she likes chaos. Look at what the Doctor was willing to do for you. Do you really want her trying again?"

It was an uncomfortable thought. All of it. The memories of what the Doctor had done to save Clara, the personal rules he'd broken, and the other part: that Missy knew him as well as Clara and Me, and she knew what kind of person she needed to send him. If she did it again, she might find someone who would suit him even better, and lead him down an even more desperate path than he'd already taken. Missy could break the universe just by putting the right person into the Doctor's orbit.

"He needs someone strong," Clara said, making her mind up. "Someone who can run. Someone who will take his hand and won't be afraid. He needs someone who wants to learn from him, but who can teach him, too."

"I've watched him for a long time," Me said. "I know what he needs."

"You've already got a list of candidates, haven't you?"

"Of course I have." Me's smile was small but bright. "I'll let you make the final choice, though."

"We'll make it together," Clara said. "Show me your list."

"Why don't we visit them?" Me said. "You'll need to see them in action to make sure they're the right fit."

"I like the way you think."

"We'll have to think of a way to put them together."

Clara turned away from the screen and considered the TARDIS controls. "It needs to be something better than a phone call. He'll get suspicious if we try to replicate what's worked before."

Me moved around the console confidently, flicking switches and turning dials. She always made it look easy, even though she'd known less about how to fly a TARDIS when they started than Clara. Whenever Clara asked why she hadn't learned before, Me always changed the subject. It was one of the mysteries Clara was determined to unravel before she had to leave.

"We'll think of a plan when we've picked a person," Me said, as she pulled down the lever and threw them into the time vortex. "It needs to be tailored to the person, after all."

"Maybe something with Daleks."

Me rolled her eyes, but the way they crinkled at the corners told Clara that Daleks would fit into their plan somewhere. "After we find someone, we'll have to stop following him. He needs to get on with things on his own."

"I will if you will," Clara said with a grin.

***

Clara stared up at the screens lining one wall of the conference room. She still hadn't defeated the TARDIS over the bright white control room, but it was letting her design other areas at last. Two walls of the conference room were lined with bookshelves--a physical representation of a small fraction of the databanks, but Me seemed to like it--and a long table ran down the middle. It looked like more like a cross between a library and a UNIT situation centre than a conference room.

Clara refused to call it their war room, no matter how many times Me tried to change the sign on the door. That kind of name gave people ideas. It was their conference room.

The screens showed darkened bedrooms scattered through time and space. It had taken some complicated temporal mechanics to do it, but the TARDIS manual had been unusually helpful, and Me, for once, seemed to have some experience with it. Clara didn't like to ask why she'd done something like this before when so many things about time travel were so new to her. Or at least, unfamiliar.

There didn't seem to be any pattern to the memories Me chose to hold onto and the ones she consigned to databases, or simply allowed to fade unrecorded. Maybe the pattern was something only Me could see. Clara was fairly sure she didn't want to live long enough to have too many memories to hold in her head.

Me sat on the edge of the table, pretending to stare at the screens, but Clara could feel Me's gaze on her.

"I still think the blue one had the most potential," Clara said. She didn't, but she was trying to understand Me's objections to that one. "I can't pronounce her name, but the Doctor probably can. She's got fire."

Me wrinkled her nose. "She's not human enough. The Doctor does best with humans."

"Why?"

"You're not going to choose her," Me said.

"I might."

"You won't."

Clara pouted, but acknowledged the hit with a nod. "The boy is right out. He's nice enough, but the TARDIS can't hold his ego and the Doctor's. It would explode."

"They'd need a third to make it work. Someone to bleed their egos regularly."

"This Doctor isn't really a team kind of person," Clara said. "He needs one person. If he has two, he runs out of hands, and you know he needs a spare one now that he's got a sonic screwdriver again."

Me's smile was small and wry. "I like the sunglasses better."

"No, you don't."

Me shrugged.

Clara stepped closer to the screens and tapped one. The bedroom it showed was messy, and the colours would be too bright and too brash in the daylight. All that could be seen of the sleeping occupant was a bit of bushy afro poking out from under the duvet. "I think she's the one."

Me raised one eyebrow. "Really?"

"She'll suit him."

"She'll ask a lot of questions."

"He likes to explain things. It helps him think of clever plans."

"She'll ask questions nobody else asks."

Clara smiled. "Someone has to."

"She'll make jokes."

"He needs someone who can make him laugh." Clara tilted her head. "He needs someone who can laugh at him. He takes himself too seriously otherwise."

"She'll walk right into danger."

"It's no good sending him someone who runs away all the time."

Me jumped down from the table and moved closer to the screens, her eyes intent. "She'll be fierce and brave. She won't back down. She'll be able to run as far and as fast as he does."

"And she's kind," Clara said. "He needs someone kind, because sometimes he gets too caught up in right and wrong, and he forgets to be kind."

There was a long pause, a thoughtful pause, before Me slowly nodded. Once. Twice. "She's the one."

"Yup."

Me tapped the other screens and, one by one, they all went black until only the bedroom with their choice remained. The duvet had slipped down slightly while they talked, to reveal one closed eye and the tip of an ear half hidden under frizzy hair. "I've worked out how they'll meet."

"Does it involve Daleks?" Clara asked.

"Maybe."

Clara grinned. "Excellent. You can tell me all about it on the way."

"And then we can get back to what we're supposed to be doing."

"What's that, then?"

"Taking you back to Gallifrey." Me's smile was too innocent for her eyes. It was a good look for her. "The long way round."


End file.
